KNOXVILLE — Tennessee men’s basketball players, even the freshmen, quickly come to understand that coach Bruce Pearl might say anything at any time.
Still, few of Pearl’s most experienced players expected his frustration following Wednesday night’s 80-73 Southeastern Conference win over Arkansas.
The 16th-ranked Volunteers (22-7, 10-5) held off a late charge from the Razorbacks (14-16, 7-8) and started celebrating in the locker room.
Pearl strolled in and quickly squashed those senior night smiles.
“Arkansas is a good team, but I’m raising the expectation level at this point,” a still-stern Pearl told reporters minutes later. I’m telling you, the games that we’ve won, the games that we’ve lost, I’m fine with every one of them. But I’m not OK with the basketball that I saw tonight from Tennessee.